Sudan: More Than 20 Killed in Sudan After Shell Hits Market

A refugee family from Darfur, Sudan, flees to the border town of Adre, Chad (file photo).

More than 20 people were killed Sunday after shells hit a market in a suburb of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, a committee of pro-democracy lawyers said in a statement.

Pro-democracy lawyers said the shells hit the market in Omdurman during an intense exchange of fire between the two sides.

"More than 20 civilians have been killed and others have been wounded," said the statement.

The committee keeps track of rights violations during the conflict and its civilian victims.

On Saturday, a medical source said shells that hit houses in Khartoum had killed 15 civilians.

Omdurman has repeatedly been the site of fierce battles since April when fighting broke out between the forces of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Though most of the fighting was previously contained to the capital and the western region of Darfur, it has also spread to areas south of Khartoum according to witnesses.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in the Sudan conflict so far, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project.

But aid groups and medics have repeatedly warned the real toll exceeds recorded figures, with many of those wounded and killed never reaching hospitals or morgues.

The war has caused an estimated 5.5 million people to flee, both within Sudan and across borders, according to the United Nations.

According to the UN, women and girls are kidnapped every day in Darfur to be reduced to slavery.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called on the international community to finance growing humanitarian needs.

"The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' humanitarian response in Sudan is only about a third funded," Assadullah Nasrullah, spokesperson for the UNHCR in Sudan told RFI's Guilhem Fabry.

"Despite the urgency of the crisis, the level of funding has really fallen. This is why we continue to call on donor countries and the international community to pay attention to the situation in Sudan."

The world's attention has been focused on the war in Gaza, he added, but Sudan should not be forgotten, he added.

"The number of people fleeing their homes continues to increase, the situation continues to deteriorate, the needs increase."

(with AFP)

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